The Crow: Guardian Angel

[Hotwire]

Detective Jonathan Gabriel awoke to the sound of his phone ringing. It was 2:16 AM, and he answered it quickly to keep from waking his wife, Michelle.

"Hello," he whispered.
"It's me," answered his partner Tony Argento. "He's making his move, I need you here."
"On my way." Gabriel hung up.

Gabriel and Argento had been working the case for the past two months. They had been staking out a junkie low-life who was their only lead to one of the largest crime ring in the city. A crime ring they both new was tied to police corruption, but had never been able to prove. Casper was just the kind of bottom feeder to give them a way in. The nice thing about junkies, is their addiction will eventually get the best of them, and right then, Casper was headed out for a score.

When Gabriel drove up, Argento flagged him down.
"He just got back, and took the alley to the back door," Tony told him.
"Then let take him," Jonathan replied, drawing his gun and already on the move.

 

[Hotwire]

No sooner had Gabriel turned the corner, did his instinct kick in. The trap had been so obvious, why hadn't he seen it coming. His thought quickly turned to the sleeping mother of his unborn son. What would happen to them? Did Argento know everything Gabriel knew? Did he know what he had in his private files? Or did Tony simple feel Jonathan was a loose end that needed cut off? Either way, here he stood in a back alley, standing in the snow, nowhere to run. Guns infront of him, and his dirty cop partner behind him. As the first bulets tore through his body, his eyed filled with tears. As they ran down his face, Tony shot him one last time. As he laid face down in the snow, dying, he thought it was odd, the only pain he felt was the frostbite on his face.

"Michelle," soft escaped his lips with his last breath.

Detective Jonathan Gabriel was dead. Was.

 

[Hotwire]

-Five years later...

Det. Gabriel's widow, Michelle, and his son Simon, were digging in the attic for the Christmas decortaions. Their smiles were huge, lots of laughter. Until, she found the box. Michelle's smile faded as she took the lid off the box containing her late husband's things. She sent Simon downstair as the tears filled her eyes.

Going through the box, she found something she hadn't noticed before. A thick file envelope. She opened it, and was shocked. Inside were reports. Reports on crooked cops. Some were copies of Internal Affairs documents, others were just notes in Jonathan's own hadwriting. Bottom line, this was damning evidence. She had to take it to the one person she could trust with it. The man who had been there for her from the day her husband died, Sergent Tony Argento.

She closed the envelope and headed for the phone. Outside the window, a crow sat watchig from a nearby tree. As Tony listened to Michelle's story, the crow took flight.

 

[Hotwire]

Across the city, the crow lands in a cemetary. Hopping from one tombstone to another, it searches for just the right one. Finally, he settle on a large stone, a police shield engraved above the name. Detective Jonathan Gabriel. The crow pecks the stone then drops to the ground, pecking more.

Before long, the ground begins to heave beneath the snow. A grunting voice can be heard from the coffin below. The crow returns to his perch on the stone, cawwing loudly, The ground slowly erupts and the dead cop rises from his grave. Gabriel draggs himself out and onto the freezing snow. The feeling so familiar to him. HIs dirty hands find his face, trying to wipe away the tears he cried that day, but all he finds are the scars that replaced them. Clumbsly he gets to his feet, and drunkenly he stumbles toward the church.

 

[Hotwire]

Jonathan stumbles through a door, finding himself in the priest's private chambers. The priest is startled, but no affraid.

Still shaken, Gabriel asks, "Where, am, I?"
The priest, recognizing Jonathan from his funeral five years ago, calmly replies, "The land of the living, my son."
"I, don't understand."
"Sit, I think I can explain," the priest says as he begins his story.

"I wasn't always a preist. Before I moved here to the city, I was a medicine man on my tribe's reservation. My people had many legneds. And all of them were handed down from generation to generation by the medicine men. My father told them to me, and I told them to the son I left behind. One such story, I feel, tells us why you are here. You see, we believed that once a person died, that a crow would carry their soul from this world to the next. We also had stories of the crows bringing people back. But they only did this when something truely terrible had happened, and vengance was truely needed."

"It was these few people, whom the crows would bring back, that were charged with setting the wrong things right. Only then could they truely rest in peace."

Jonathan's mind was full of questions. "Why me? I've seen far worse crimes where the victim didn't climb out of his grave."

"Perhaps you serve a greater purpose, my son," said the priest. "Perhaps you should ask the one who brought you back, why he did it."

 

[Hotwire]

No sooner does the priest suggest it, then the crow caws from outside the door. Jonathan's mind is flooded with images. His wife, his young son, a box in the attic, the files, Argento. As he shakes off the visions, things become clearer. He has not bee brought back to avenge his own murder, but rather protect his family.

To be continued once I get some feed back...

 

[Moviefan2k4]

This is a very interesting take on the Crow themes; I especially like the Biblical name of Jonathan Gabriel, and his occupation as a cop harkens back to Albrecht from James O'Barr's original story (and of course the 1994 Alex Proyas film). I like the notion of his "mission" being something other than vengeance, and your writing is very well done so far. Keep up the good work!